Winnipeg Police Board issues call for nominations to its Indigenous Council on Policing and Crime Prevention

Press Release

October 19, 2016

Winnipeg, MB – The council was established in September 2015. It has a mandate to provide the Board with information, advice and recommendations on how the Board can better engage with Indigenous people and address Indigenous people’s safety concerns in the priorities, objectives and policies the Board sets for the Winnipeg Police Service. The council’s first members were each appointed for one-year terms, with the option to renew them. There are currently four vacancies on the council.

“The Indigenous Council on Policing and Crime Prevention provides the Board with essential insights and advice,” says Councillor Scott Gillingham, Chair of the Winnipeg Police Board. “Over the past year, the Board has consulted the council on its Bias-Free Policing policy and the qualities the community expects to see in the next Police Chief. The Board takes the council’s advice very seriously and publishes all of its formal recommendations at Board meetings.”

“We want the membership of the council to reflect the diversity of Winnipeg’s Indigenous people so we can bring the community’s concerns and expectations to the attention of the Winnipeg Police Board,” Shauna Fontaine, co-chair of the Indigenous Council on Policing and Crime Prevention, adds.

The Board has implemented a nomination process to select members of the council so that the community has a say in who is representing their concerns. The council itself determines the dates of its meetings and is empowered to raise any issue that is within the Board’s mandate in order to offer its advice and recommendations.

A nomination form is available on the Board’s website at: www.winnipegpoliceboard.ca.

Media inquiries should be directed Councillor Scott Gillingham, Chair of the Winnipeg Police Board, at 204-986-5848 or via email at ScottGillingham@winnipeg.ca.

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